


Addled Minds and Addled Monkeys

by Squickqueen



Category: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Movies), War of the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Compliant, Drug Use, Gen, Hash Brownies, Humor, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Smoking, Translation, dancing bananas and other bullshit, very light Caesar/Koba
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 21:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14245899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squickqueen/pseuds/Squickqueen
Summary: A chimpanzee, a bonobo and an orang-utan meet in the woods, where they do, what friends do in the woods: sit around a campfire, have a drink, smoke a joint, eat cookies and talk nonsense.What could possibly go wrong?





	Addled Minds and Addled Monkeys

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Einmal drei Affen mit Schlagseite, bitte!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14198178) by [Squickqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squickqueen/pseuds/Squickqueen). 



> Thanks to [Talimee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talimee) for beta reading :*

From humans Koba had only learned to hate and to artfully smoke weed in a rolled-up sheet of paper.

Back in the labs the bonobo had often observed with great interest, how the younger scientists rolled finely cut weed into sheets of paper during their breaks, just to stick them between their lips and light them. The humans did so very secretively and grinning like members of some sort of cult while doing so. Koba wondered, even today, what the secret-mongering was good for: The stench of burning weed was so overwhelmingly disgusting, everyone with an minuscule sense of smell could smell it 5 kilometers against the wind! At some point one of these scientific jokers had had the brilliant idea to hand such a rolled-up paper to Koba.

For science!

Curiously imitating the human movements, Koba had learned to smoke his very first joint. Yes, the stench may have been revolting but the following hours of happiness and relaxation in a laboratory full of humans had been worth it. Koba had long since traded the laboratory full of humans for a forest full of apes. However, his love for joints remained.

Tonight the bonobo leaned happily and limp like a rubber chicken against the trunk of a giant sequoia tree, hands folded on his stomach and a joint between his lips. He scratched himself occasionally behind his ear and watched the campfire's play of light and shadow on his fur. The small fire crackled merrily, blending right in with the nocturnal noises of the forest and the creek that passed nearby. Bemused, Koba glanced up after the smoke that slowly ascended to the night sky, where the stars blinked. This was the life!

When a nearby bush rustled, he lazily turned his head in that direction. By Jacob's shriveled butt, not even the appearance of a bear would've made him move his pinky toe right now! Pff, bear. No ape had ever seen a predator larger than a rabid squirrel in these parts of the woods!

A jute bag landed in the grass not far from the fire, followed by the beefy figure of an almost hairless chimpanzee. Rocket coughed meaningfully and waved the smoke away.

 _Stinks like burning gorilla hair_ , he complained with a mixture of grunts and brusque gestures.

 _Stinks like burning gorilla hair!_ Koba parroted him before his good eye shifted to the other side of the fire, where a reddish-brown giant sat down with a grunt. Maurice placed a green glass bottle next to him on the ground as carefully as if it was a newborn baby ape. Well, there existed far more baby apes than glass bottles in this part of the forest, so it came as no surprise that the orangutan treated the bottle like a raw egg.

 _You are late_ , Koba greeted the newcomers.

 _You smoke too fast_ , Rocket snapped in reply before loosing all interest in the bonobo. Rocket put the jute bag in his lap and opened it with exaggerated care, uncovering three brown chocolate cookies, of which he took one into his hands and held it reverentially aloft like a relic in front of the congregation. At this precise moment, an owl shoohooted quite solemnly and a single ray of moonlight fell unto the cookie adding the well-needed kitsch to the scene.

Rocket's nostrils trembled in anticipation.

A fine smell of honey and liquor mixed with Koba’s burning weed, when Maurice unscrewed his bottle.

 _Honey schnapps needed more cooling_ , the orangutan explained and lifted the bottle. His beady eyes looked from Rocket to Koba, until they followed his example.

"Toast!"

None of them knew why they used the human word for burnt bread to start their secret meetings, or who had come up with the idea in the first place. It wasn’t important. The word had a nice ring to it and was easy to bellow. While Maurice enjoyed his honey schnapps in small sips, Rocket couldn’t control his craving and stuffed the whole chocolate cookie into his mouth. He sat on the ground, munching happily for a while and then promptly fell over with a quiet “Umph”. Spread-eagled and giggling like a crazy lemur king, the chimp wiggled his big toe.

“Slow … Rocket!”, Maurice hummed.

As always, the orangutan was fascinated by how quickly the mix of sugar, flour and weed worked its way into Rocket’s system, the sugar quite possible kicking the chimps brain hardest of all the ingredients. Maurice pondered, whether he should give the cookies another try.

No, he’d rather not!

The last time Maurice had accidentally emptied Rocket’s bag of cookies, the chimpanzee had become catatonic and hadn't moved from his tree for two days. Besides, the cookies didn’t do anything for Maurice. A light tingle in his right butt cheek was all he got out of Rocket’s favorite snack.

Who needed cookies anyway when you could indulge yourself in delicious honey schnapps?

The mighty orangutan put the bottle to his lips, tilted his head back and drank. While drinking the sparkling light of the stars caught his interest. They were so much brighter now, that the human cities had gone dark. Without averting is gaze, he put the bottle down.

 _Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are!_ , Maurice’s left hand signed. _It’s a luminous ball of gas_ , answered his right hand with a little help of his left foot.

 _But the sky is stellar, drunk like a city dweller. And where I drink, there’s Home sweet Home._ _Bibo ergo sum!_ _The wise knew all along: Knowledge is power and only when I know nothing, I will know it all. Fiat lux, you twinkling stars. Homo sapiens is dead!_

Maurice stopped in his flood of gestures. Strange, were there more stars than usual tonight? He squinted his eyes. Ah, no, it was just the drink finally kicking in. He giggled and took another sip. Then he noticed Koba.

The scarred Bonobo had been observing him for quite a while now out of half-closed eyes. The joint stuck to his lower lip and had obviously forgotten about the laws of physics. Sudden embarrassment washed over Maurice who felt quite ashamed about his philosophical signing. He turned away from Koba, muttering to himself. It was Rocket, who saved him from further embarrassment.

With a jerk the chimpanzee sat up. Branches and leaves trickled down from his head as he stared into the flames for a minute before he scratched his chest and started piling up earth. Trapped in his own little world, Rocket hummed to himself, with the tip of his tongue stuck out to the side of his mouth. The pile of earth between his hands slowly took shape, grew in size, became more slender, more refined.

Koba and Maurice exchanged glances.

“Rocket … art?”, Koba growled.

The chimpanzee gave no answer. Completely absorbed in his work, he adorned the heap of earth with little branches and leaves. Finally done, Rocket stood up and staggered aside to present his work of art. Excitedly he looked back and forth between Koba and Maurice. The orangutan shrugged helplessly. He had no idea what these two piles of earth – he pinched his eyes together – this one pile of earth was supposed to represent. Koba, on the other hand, finally saw the light.

“Is Caesar”, he rasped.

Indeed! If you tilted your head and had an incredible imagination as well, you could actually recognize their beloved king in the pile of earth. And if one, like Koba, had a slight weakness for said king, then one had to admit, Rocket had captured him pretty damn well considering the circumstances.

Koba sucked his joint and tried not to let the fact show, that he was on the brink of grabbing the pile of earth to carry it into his nest and put it on his Caesar shrine to worship it.

To distract himself from his sudden urge to mate, the bonobo approached Maurice, or, to be precise, his bottle.

_Give me the schnapps. Want to try it. Better than last time?_

The bottle changed hands.

_Much better!_

Koba took a sip and instantly sprayed the liquid into the fire. A jet of flame shot up, scorching the few hairs left on Rocket’s behind and sent the chimp into the nearby creek, screeching like a howler monkey.

Koba and Maurice roared with laughter.

_Tastes better …_

Koba carelessly threw the bottle back at Maurice, who nearly had a heart attack. Didn’t Koba know how valuable a glass bottle was?!

… _but still too much of old human socks._

Maurice snorted, mortally offended.

Weren’t bonobos supposed to be peaceful and friendly? With Koba they must have picked up the most ill-natured and rude representative of the whole species!

Maurice hugged the bottle tenderly to his chest and rocked it like a baby.

 _Don't listen to Koba, little one. Daddy will protect you from mean bonobo_ , his feet signed.

Koba rolled his eyes and kept a lookout for a new victim. Which he found in Rocket of course. Soaking wet, the chimp dragged his scorched behind back to the fireplace.

Koba snickered.

_Red ass! Like baboon!_

Rocket, in lack of a better answer, angrily grabbed the artfully done earth Caesar and threw it at Koba without thinking. Unfortunately his hand-eye coordination no longer worked and so the pile of earth flew straight past Koba. It didn’t hit Maurice either. And it certainly didn’t turn around to fly back and slap Rocket in the face.

No, the earthy Caesar hit the real Caesar right in the face.

Rocket, Maurice and Koba froze.

“Run!”, Maurice grunted and got his butt 5 cm into the air, before he flopped helplessly back to the ground.

Koba promptly inhaled the joint. Smoke curled out of his ears and nostrils.

And Rocket? Rocket collapsed to the side like a sack full of potatoes and covered his eyes. If he couldn’t see Caesar, Caesar clearly couldn’t see him either!

Unsure of what to make of the scene, Caesar’s gaze wandered from his adviser to his best friend to his second-in-command. A horrible stench lingered in the air, a mixture of sickly sweet honey, cold cigarette smoke and chocolate, heavy and suffocating. Caesar’s eyes nearly burst out in tears.

Finally wiping off the damp earth, the ape king felt a tiny bit … overwhelmed.

What had happened to the three of them? Were they sick? Did the virus, that had killed all of humankind, now spread to apes as well? Caesar feared the worst.

“What … all of this?”, he demanded to know.

It was highly unusual to hear their king actually speak and it put at least two of the addled rascals on red alert.

Rocket shut his eyes even tighter.

 _Cookie?_ , Maurice submissively offered the last of Rocket’s cookies to Caesar, but his king didn’t pay attention. Instead he sat down at the fire.

Only Koba had recovered from his shock and now calmly rolled himself a new joint. Finished, he held it out to Caesar.

 _War Council_ , Koba signed.

_War Council? What for? Against whom?_

_Boredom._

_Boredom? How can you be bored?! There's a lot of work to do. Build a better world for apes. There's no time for boredom!_

Koba clutched Caesar's hands and put his finger to his lips.

"Hush", he whispered, before sticking the joint into the Alpha’s mouth and lit it with a burning twig.

"Relax ... important. Caesar … too many ... worries. Thinks ... too much."

Caesar disagreed. Strongly. But when he took a deep breath to snap back, the joint unfolded its effect instantly.

Caesar hiccuped and froze.

Koba watched fascinated, as Caesar's pupils inflated like some sort of overeager yeast dough, before the left one shrank again. His eyes rolled to the inside, squinting over the tip of his nose and into the fire. Koba was certain, that chimpanzee eyes were incapable of squinting to the outside like chameleon eyes, but that was exactly what Caesar’s did next.

Then Caesar’s jaw hit the ground and for a second the joint balanced on the edge of his lip, before it threw itself down towards certain death. Koba, who did not want to loose another joint this night, snatched it out of midair.

Then the coughing started.

Wheezing and choking like the old school bus Maurice had once tried to repair, Caesar sat by the fire. His eyes watered, his fur bristled. Before anyone could stop him, his hand grabbed Maurice's bottle, and, assuming it was water, he drank greedily.

It was as if he had drunk liquid fire! The bottle fell out of Caesar's hand - Maurice screamed in horror! - his tear ducts exploded, water shot from his nostrils and his throat, my goodness!, his throat hadn't stung like this since he had spoken his very first word!

Caesar opened his mouth and screamed. Or wanted to, because all that left his throat was a high pitched whistling. Maurice finally remembered that his king might be a tad more important than his bottle and hit him on the back, knocking Caesar down to the ground, where his face said hello to Mother Earth for the second time that night.

Koba on the other hand was quite surprised when the moon, that was otherwise known as Caesar’s cute butt, suddenly rose in front of his nose. Chuckling Koba put the joint back in his mouth – mmh, tasted like Caesar! - before he, in an attempt to calm down his king, patted said butt.

 _Genius thinking, Koba_ , Maurice signed dryly.

After screeching “Mutant … bananas! Run for … your lives!”, Caesar had climbed the mighty sequoia tree with lightning speed and saved himself on the highest and thinnest branch. Orangutan and bonobo looked up. Somewhere in the treetop was His Majesty … they hoped.

“Where Caesar?”, Koba barked up the tree. “Want Caesar! CAESAR!”, he tried to persuade the Alpha to come down. All that came down was a hail of cones.

_Rocket, climb up and... Rocket?_

Like his very own statue, Rocket sat silently besides the fire, his hands still covering his eyes. By now he also covered his ears with his feet.

 _What now?_ , Maurice signed and picked a cone from his head.

 _Wait_ , Koba decided. _Smoke, drink. Caesar will come down._

But Caesar didn’t come down. For a while they could hear him scrambling and screeching about in the branches like a moonstruck baboon, before he pounded on his chest and struck out a path across the tree-tops, away from their camp.

Koba and Maurice looked at each other.

_Uh-oh …_

_After him!_

 ***

Caesar woke up with a splitting headache. Something sharp kept poking him in the ear. He waved his hand around furiously just to make the sharp pain jump from his ear to his hand. Just great!

Slowly he opened his eyes at last and recognized his son Blue Eyes. Who stood in front of him, upside down … No, wait, that wasn’t quite right! He himself dangled headfirst from a tree, his feet entangled in something that looked like suspenders.

Blue Eyes had a very pointy, very sharp looking stick in his hands. No doubt the origin of Caesar’s earlier pain. Just as Blue Eyes lifted the stick again to prod his father’s soft parts, Caesar found his voice again.

"Blue Eyes … stop!"

Blue Eyes tilted his head skeptically. An unfathomable expression crept into his eyes. Then he poked his father once more in the nose, as if he had to make sure that he was really alive before he settled on all fours and trotted away.

Caesar spewed curses, the Rodman’s would have grounded him for for months, while rotating slowly on his suspenders like forgotten laundry.

Last night was a haze. He remembered a baby bottle, burning weed and a petrified chimp statue with too many limbs, but Caesar couldn’t believe these memories were actually true. They were just too weird! Vaguely he remembered Koba, Rocket and Maurice. He drank something, right? But it hadn’t been water … and then … giant bananas, dancing around him lasciviously while stripping out of their peels …

Caesar closed his eyes and groaned. The headache became almost unbearable!

In the end he somehow managed to untangle himself and fell to the ground with a loud _Thud_. Tumbling from left to right to left again as the ground refused to stay put, he made his way back to the apes’ stronghold.

Though he had to stop multiple times on his way.

First to empty a little creek because his tongue stuck in his mouth like a dry piece of wood.

Then he had to answer the call of nature due to too much creek water.

He stopped for a third time just to scream at the top of his lungs, when he passed a lake and saw his reflection in the water: Someone had shaved slogans into his fur!

 _The higher an ape climbs, the more butt he shows. – M._ , _Rocket was here!_ , as well as a heart with the initials _K+C_.

Caesar screamed even louder.

 

At the end of the story, our three villains got off relatively easy with a lecture, shaved heads and destroyed equipment. But from this memorable day on, a new commandment was inscribed on Maurice's board. Right next to _Apes together strong_ and _Ape not kill Ape._

 

_Ape say no to drugs!_

 

~The End~

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone's wondering: Nope, I've never smoked weed or ate a hash cookie, so I have no idea. I do like beer though :3


End file.
